Tommy and Laura in Midnight at Vampire Castle
It was a pretty average day at school until they met the vampire. At first Tommy wasn’t sure. Okay, the coach is pretty pale (unearthly at best) and he doesn’t wanna go outside. Then he slapped himself in the head when Jess was carted out on a stretcher with two holes in her neck. “Hey Tommy,” Laura said as she sat down, unpacking her blue lunch bag with little kitten shadows all over it. “Jess got bit.” They sat at the lunch table far away from the rest of the high schoolers, alone. “Yeah, like what the fuck?” asked Tommy. He prodded his fork at the square pizza on the beige colored tray. “I’m telling you, it’s a vampire.” she said as she unpacked a bag of rice. She dumped the ziploc bag’s contents onto a paper plate and grabbed a plastic fork. “That seems kind of silly to me. Vampires are just fictional stuff right? Folk tales? I don’t honestly think it’s a real deal thing.” Tommy said, taking a cut bite from the pizza’s square crust. “It does seem like something Jess would do for attention you know? But I don’t really know her motives for something like that.” Laura said, talking while rice jumped in her mouth. Tommy winced as he noticed. “His name is Coach Feratu after all…” brooded Tommy. He finished the pizza and moved onto the school milk, which reminded of him of glue. “Oh god, is that his fucking name? Jesus christ, dude is definitely a fucking vampire. You just don’t call yourself that unless you’ve got a baby brain.” Laura yelped as she grabbed a pair of cookies. “I guess that settles that? I don’t know what we’re gonna do about it.” Tommy said, before sipping at the carton, his thumb over the maze on the side. “We should kill him.” Laura said, chipping into a cookie. “The fuck, Laura?” Tommy asked, almost spitting out milk. “I’m serious.” she said, in her british accent that made everything not serious. “You can’t just kill someone you think MIGHT be a vampire, that’s not how it works. We call that murder in the United States and you know what will happen to me if I’m caught murdering someone.” Tommy responded, with fear in his tone. “Yeah, yeah, the police will kill a black man. But I don’t think you want to be bit either right?” Laura said. “Laura, we’re not murdering anyone.” Tommy flatly said. Laura brushed him off again. “Well, if he is a vampire, it’s probably a good idea to something about it. How hard can making wooden stakes be? Getting holy water? Fashioning a whip? I mean come on, your dad’s like a priest or something right?” Laura stated. “Don’t remind me,” Tommy said, glancing at the bible in his backpack. “But seriously, we’re not murdering!” “It’s really easy. You just shank that sucker with a pointy piece of wood. Really dig it deep inside of him. For extra damage you burn his eyes out with the holy water.” Laura said, demonstrating with her hands. “LAURA THERE’S A COP HERE,” said Tommy, almost screaming as he grabbed her hands to put down at the table. He watched as the cop from fifty feet away look at a window. “...killing vampires shouldn’t be this whimsical!” “Okay, fine, I guess we’re not doing that. Let’s just capture him then.” Laura said. “Kidnap?” asked Tommy, watching the cop from afar. “God, you have to make everything I suggest sound like a crime?” Laura brushed off his retort. “Look, we’ve been friends since middle school and I’ve never heard you suggest harm to anyone except Mark.” Tommy said, shuddering. “Well, I’m was just saying that Mark could stand to have his little testicles ripped out.” Laura said. Tommy gave her the look. “Anyway… look, we’re not gonna do anything about this. For one, we’re not entirely sure he’s a vampire to begin with.” Mark stated. “We should probably still do SOMETHING about it, right?” asked Laura. “Unless you want more kids with holes in their necks. “How long have we been sitting here?” asked Tommy, glancing at the empty lunch room. “Oh fuck. Shit shit. God damn it!” Laura cursed as she checked her watched under her green sleeves. “We got a minute until class, damn it!” Just then a black janitor came in and changed their lives forever. “I heard you kids talking about vampires, right?” he asked as he stood with a wet mop. “God, make this quick. I ain’t got time for this shit,” said Laura, packing up her bag. “FUCK!” The janitor laughed. “I used to be a monster hunter back in the day. I was just like Tommy right here, even had a white girl with blond hair be my accomplice.” Tommy laughed before looking at the janitor. “Are you serious?” “Shit yeah I am. I can get you some vampire hunting gear and give you a late pass,” replied the janitor. “Follow me.” he beckoned as he placed the mop in the bucket, it’s wheels squealing just a little. Tommy grabbed his stuff and followed, along with an nervous Laura who was watching the time. “Do you think he’s being real with this shit?” she whispered to Tommy. Tommy shrugged. The janitor walked to the janitor’s closet and opened it, revealing… a normal looking janitor’s closet. He put the bucket and broom to the side of the tight space and stepped inside. Tommy followed inside but Laura kept her distance. The janitor felt along the wall… looking for something… and then he found it. He tapped a brick with an x mark and the room made a small groaning sound before the wall began to move back. A hatch appeared on a dirt floor. “What you kids don’t know is that I’ve been with this school for a long ass time. They hired me as a monster hunter but I kind of got demoted ever since they stopped showing up. Of course, this was a little while after she died…” the janitor stated, putting his hand under the latch. “Did he just say his accomplice died? The blond one?” asked Laura. “Jesus christ girl, either you come in here or you get to your class late. A little late to back out now!” groaned the janitor as he lifted the hatch. A ladder was in the hole under the latch and he climbed down, with Tommy and Laura following him. A fan attached the far back of the walls of the room oscillated the wall. Laura made the mistake of touching the wall, which was slimy and gross. Under the little light in there, she could have sworn it was green. She shook it off as she felt it move, yelping a bit but was ignored by the janitor and Tommy. The janitor lit up the room with a flashlight, looking through the stuff he had. Gold swords and knives, a jar of scarab beetles, a book with it’s cover torn off, a jar of green slime, and a ghostly photograph hanging on the wall… the janitor finally pulled out a red milk crate. “Check this out.” the janitor said as Tommy and Laura closed around him. The janitor pulled out a pair of brown leather robes, a knife that looked kind of like a cross, a jar of maple syrup with water inside instead, bandoliers with wooden stakes in them, and a bible. “Woah. Shit.” said Tommy and Laura at the same time. The janitor smiled under his bushy mustache. Laura grabbed the cross knife and pretended to stab Tommy which made the janitor frown very quickly. “Watch it. This stuff isn’t to be played around with.” the janitor said. He put back the stuff into the milk crate. “Alright, go to the main office when you leave for school today. I’ll hand you this shit in a gym bag and we’re gonna see Coach Feratu after school.” “Oh god, is this a club? I got saxophone lessons today.” said Laura. The janitor looked at her and then lit up. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure out the schedule later or something… just don’t worry about it. Focus on this.” said the janitor. “Wait… are we seriously killing someone?” asked Tommy. “Buddy, you gotta learn that shit like ethics and morals don’t matter when you’re a monster hunter. If you don’t learn it when we go to stop Coach Feratu, you’re gonna learn it the hard way. They’re monsters, not people.” coldly stated janitor. The flashlight showed something that Tommy didn’t notice before, but it was the scar by his neck. ---- Tommy watched the clock as school’s last minutes let out. He texted his mom earlier about needing to do some extra credit for math after school. He didn’t exactly like lying but he agreed to this. The bell rang and he got up from his seat. As he exited the class, Laura rushed over to him from two rooms away. “Don’t forget about the front office.” she noted, as if the subject had not been in his mind since they went down there. “You sure about this Laura?” asked Tommy. Laura nodded. “I mean it. If you wanna back out of this, I’ll let him know…” Laura simply gave him the look and he stared straight ahead. “I’m pretty sure about this. Actually, probably way more than you. Weren’t you nervous about murder or something?” Laura questioned. Tommy didn’t really know what to say. They made it to the front office where the janitor was. He dropped a gym bag of the vampire killing stuff. “Coach doesn’t leave until like 7. He just says he’s busy with grading and stuff, but let’s be real here, he doesn’t have that much stuff to do. He’s a coach,” the janitor explained. He pulled out the knife. “This is a cross dagger. You’ve seen this before and it works like a knife, except a shaped kind of like a cross. Not exactly sure why this works on vampires…” “Because it’s blessed by the powers of heaven?” responded Tommy. “What? No.” The janitor seemed almost dumbfounded by his response, as if it came entirely left field. Tommy and Laura merely shrugged. The janitor rolled his eyes and pulled out the whip. “This is the whip and it takes a while before you really get the reflexes down. Since this is only one vampire, I don’t think we’ll really need it but we’re bringing it along anyway just in case. Now this...” he said, putting back the whip and pulling out a maple syrup bottle with water inside. “...Is the holy water. I was kind of running out of stuff to put it in so that’s why it’s in here. Honestly, this is kind of useless and can really only be used to blind a vampire or melt off body parts.” “Not that different than what I was gonna use it for, honestly.” said Laura. “And these? Ammo belts of wooden stakes,” said the janitor, hoisting one of the bandoliers up so they could see. “You gotta put this through the vampire’s heart and then slam it in real good.” “Wouldn’t that also work with a regular person though? How do you know if someone’s a vampire?” asked Tommy, clearly trying to appeal to ethics again. “You’ll know. If the fangs or the overly vampire name don’t tell you, their skin turning to ash will.” said the janitor. “Now that we got all the basics down, let’s fucking kill a vampire.” ---- The three crept up to the office of Coach Feratu, where the Coach was fast asleep. Tommy sloooowly turned the silver knob of the door, the hinges turning the door back millimeters at a time. Laura was getting impatient. “Oh for fucks sake!” said Laura, grabbing the doorknob violently from Tommy and slamming it into the wall hard enough to make the shelf shake. “Jesus christ Laura, do you want to get us killed?” asked Tommy in a whispering tone. “He’s still asleep so I don’t know what your problem is. Hand me a stake.” Laura asked, motioning for the janitor for a wooden stake. “What if he’s a good vampire?” asked Tommy. “Oh jeez, quit trying to bring ethics into this! Didn’t the janitor say to stop bringing ethics into this? Stop bringing ethics into this!” snapped Laura. “What are you two anyway? Like in terms of your relationship to each other? Friends or…?” The janitor asked. “Friends.” replied Tommy. “Ah.” said the janitor, sliding a wooden stake to Laura. Laura grabbed it and searched the shelf for something to hit it with. Her fingers paused for a moment over a bobblehead of a blue bear with star eyes but then quickly moved over to a red colored crescent wrench. Tommy searched the Coach’s desk if there was anything to clear his name but it was kind of hard when his home address was apparently Vampire Castle. He tried to bring morals into this but it was getting a lot harder every given minute. Laura placed the wooden stake over his stomach, feeling around for a heartbeat. Eventually she just decided to drive it into the center of chest and slammed it with the red crescent wrench. The coach’s eyes shot wide open. He stared at Laura and then at his chest. “Oh jeez, what fuck?” asked Coach Feratu. Laura stepped back with her hands over her mouth. “What? Is he not a vampire?” asked Tommy, stopping his search. Laura dropped her hands and looked directly at Tommy. “No, you idiot, I didn’t hit the heart!” The coach got up as the stake dropped to the floor, the wound healing itself quickly. “Man, what the fuck is wrong with you people? I have a snack one time and the whole school goes nuts.” “Don’t believe him. He’s trying to appeal to your morals.” said the janitor. “You wanna know the real story? Dracula sent me over as an undercover informant, judging on whether the school still kept around it’s monster hunter. Apparently they did, along with two new ones apparently…” he said, looking at Tommy and Laura. “And why would he need to know that?” asked the janitor. “Fuck if I know man. I’m resigning from this school tomorrow.” Coach said, grabbing his keys. Laura splashed some holy water on his fingers, causing an acidic reaction that burnt his fingers right off. The coach screamed and cursed and Laura grabbed the letter with his address and threw it to Tommy. She grabbed his wrists and forced him to stand up. “Jesus christ, what the hell!” screamed the Coach. “We’re going to Vampire Castle. Tommy, you know how to drive right?” asked Laura. Tommy nodded confusingly. He looked at the janitor. “I like her.” smiled the janitor. ---- “Why didn’t we bring the janitor along? Why the fuck are we going to Vampire Castle? We still haven’t killed the one we already have!” asked Tommy. “Just keep driving and I’ll answer your questions.” replied Laura in a cold tone. “No.” said Tommy, making a hard brake and the coach in the trunk of the car howled. Laura got pissed. “Why the fuck did you stop here for, asshole?” asked Laura, staring at the fog. “Because you need to chill the fuck out. You wanna commit genocide and I don’t even know why; as far as I know both of your parents are alive, you don’t have any dead siblings, all your relationships went fine with the exception of Mark… nothing that could be ruined by a vampire. I don’t get it Laura! I don’t!” explained Tommy. He put his head on the steering wheel. “Do you know what you are now?” asked Laura. “What?” asked Tommy, putting his head up from the steering wheel. “You’re an action hero now. We’ve been given a mission statement and now we kill the Nazis. Captain America just needed to know that to take on the Red Skull. He didn’t need to know their backstory or anything like that. Did you see what they did to Jess? Two little holes in her neck.” explained Laura. “And that was from someone we’re not even sure is even really bad.” “The fuck Laura?” asked Tommy. “I didn’t realize you were a psychopath now.” “Didn’t you listen to the janitor?” asked Laura. “Who we still don’t know the name of? You’re taking his word over mine?” asked Tommy. “Well yeah, no shit. Dude was a Class A monster hunter.” replied Laura. “Look, my point is that we’re finally given a chance to become the action heroes we always dreamed about becoming. The janitor said it man. They’re not people. They’re monsters.” “The only monster here is you.” said Tommy. “Oh, don’t be doing that bullshit with me. Sure, we barely know anything about the guy, but you saw his scar right?” Laura said. “If we’re going to become monster hunters, you can’t have any doubt in your mind what you’re doing here is right.” Tommy reignited the car. “We’re only going because I want to prove you wrong. We’re not going to straight up attack, alright? We walk up there and ask Dracula what the hell he’s doing sending undercover vampires to our High School.” Laura rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna die if you do that.” Tommy stared into the back of the car and then turned his head towards the foggy road. “I’ll take that chance.” He pressed the gas pedal. ---- They put on the vampire hunting robes and put on two of the bandoliers over their chest. Tommy stepped forward onto the gravel road, the distant smell of fire and meat away. “Why didn’t we bring the janitor?” “He didn’t want to go,” said Laura, grabbing the cross dagger. “And before you start giving me that suspicious look, he was in full support of it.” “Whatever.” Tommy said, coiling the whip. The two walked forward, forgetting that Coach Feratu was still in the trunk. The gravelly sound of their footsteps echoed in the foggy scene, the moon up in the sky illuminating the night just a little. “Ah man, mom is gonna be pissed when she realizes how long I’ve been gone.” Tommy thought out loud. “Phhh, my dad is gonna be super pissed. I didn’t even come up with an excuse.” Laura pondered. They made their way to black iron gates, a statue of a gargoyle on both sides. Their eyes flashed red as they stepped past. “Probably a bad omen.” said Tommy. “Yeah, probably.” said Laura. More road of gravel and then they made their way to the front door of the castle. Tommy knocked on the door and from the window a three headed dog whimpered and jogged over before barking. A bat flew over before transforming into a black headed vampire woman. The door opened. “What’s your business?” she asked, bored. “We were here to see Dracula?” asked Tommy, sounding dumb. The vampire girl opened the door fully and welcomed them in with a hand gesture. Tommy and Laura headed in cautiously, one more than the other. ---- The doors for the vampire throne room were a shiny gold bordered by silver. A fanged cross was engraved in platinum on both door, with the doors needing to be pulled by a hand over latches. The vampire girl opened the doors and stepped back quickly, her force basically slamming them open. The shrieking of bats and fanged humans alike quickly filled the red carpeted hallway. “You have guests.” said the girl vampire in a monotone voice. From the red throne that seemed to be made out of frozen blood, a male vampire stood up. Seemingly dozens of vampires focused their gaze at the end of the room where Tommy and Laura stepped in. “Well well, what brings these two humans to the Vampire Castle?” asked the male vampire, presumably Dracula, with a smile. “We’re here about a undercover vampire at our school?” asked Laura, already getting tough. Dracula’s mouth wavered into a flatline as he looked at them. “Well?” exasperated Laura. “First off? Not appreciating that attitude. Secondly, what’s the big deal?” asked Dracula, sitting back down and grabbing a clear wine glass with a dark red liquid inside. “Also, yes, this is blood. Cow’s blood. Not really too fond of the taste honestly…” “Well, a girl at the school got bit on the neck by a guy named Coach Feratu…” explained Tommy. “You went all the way over here to tell me that? And Coach Feratu? I thought I told that guy not to use that stupid name or bite anyone. Jesus christ, why is everyone so incompetent?” moaned Dracula. “Any way, there is absolutely nothing to worry about…” “I’m calling bullshit, Dracula.” said Laura, stepping closer to the throne. The other vampires hissed and she took a step back. “Oh wait, are you guys those monster hunters from a couple years ago? I thought you died or something. Not that it really matters because you’re not getting out of here alive…” said Dracula. “What?!” asked Tommy. “Well, now that I know you two are monster hunters, the situation is kind of different. I won’t tell you my plan if you’re expecting that, but you two can’t leave,” said Dracula. Tommy immediately darted for the door but the girl vampire closed it. The vampires began charging at them. Laura kicked the face of the girl vampire, only for her to catch her foot with her hands. Tommy saw the opening and grabbed a bottle of holy water and sprayed it down her back. She screeched and Laura kicked the door open once freed. The two ran out of the throne room and the doors slammed shut as they jumped down the stairs. The doors opened again to let out the rest of the vampires and the girl vampire, who chased after them. “I knew this was a fucking terrible idea!” shouted Tommy. “Terrible idea? You drove us here!” shouted Laura back. Suddenly a vampire dropped down from the ceiling in front of the two, attempting to lunge at Laura but missing as she dodged quickly. “Give me the whip, dumbass.” “The whip? Fuck no, I’m keeping it. You already have knife.” pointed out Tommy. Laura pulled out the knife, accidently stabbing the vampire who was making a second attempt at her. “Have you ever… done this before?” asked Tommy, in curiosity. “No…” said Laura as she examined the vampire. He vanished into ash and the open windows swept whatever was left away. “Must be luck or something…” “Laura, watch out!” said Tommy as he noticed another vampire hanging from the ceiling. As Laura ducked, the vampire was suddenly whipped and slammed hard onto the ground. Tommy didn’t even have the whip in his hands when he warned Laura, but it was there now, in his hands. “You ever done that?” asked Laura, standing up. “Absolutely not.” said Tommy. He looked around quickly and saw that the front door was guarded by a couple of vampires, but a passage upstairs was not. He darted past Laura and headed towards the stairs, expecting Laura to follow but she was tackled by the girl vampire from earlier. He let out a gasp as she was thrown into a set of red doors by her attacker but knew he needed to run and get out of here. Laura slammed into marble tile, the girl vampire slowly walking in. Laura quickly looked around and saw they were in a ballroom of sorts. She grabbed the knife and put it to her side as the doors shut. ---- Tommy made it to a outside bridge around the roof of the castle. Two vampires went straight through the roof in flight form and attempted to dive bomb him but he managed to dodge a hair’s length from them. Surrounded from the left and right and with no melee weapons, he was basically trapped. The vampires tried to grab him but he found himself doing a backflip… off the bridge and onto the roof. He rolled onto the hard red jagged shingles of the roof, trying to grab onto anything, just anything that could stop him for a second. His body tumbled off the wet roof and onto the rocks. Nothing broke his fall. He laid there breathless as he was going numb… and then something trickled down his clothes. The fall broke one of the holy water bottles, snapping the plastic and allowing it to leak. He felt himself regain his strength. “Ah fuck.” he said as he noticed the vampires approach him. He attempted to pick himself up as they walked closer and closer to him. He grabbed two wooden stakes and closed his eyes. He knew they weren’t going to land but maybe it would distract them long enough… he opened them again to see that they had vanished into ash. He grabbed the wooden stakes and marveled at his luck. He jumped into one of the open windows to see if he could find Laura. Making his way to the spot they were before, he opened the door. “Laura!” he shouted as he entered. He wasn’t expecting to find the vampire girl and Laura making out on the floor, her knife dropped on the ground nearby. He was speechless. Laura noticed him about 30 seconds later and stopped, taking her hand off the hair of the vampire girl and standing up. “Oh, hi.” said Laura, picking herself up and grabbing the knife from the marble floor. “...We’ll talk about that later, I guess? Fuck, we need to go.” said Tommy. “Yeah, you’re right.” Laura said. “Hey, mind getting us out of here?” she asked the vampire. The vampire nodded as a pair of batlike wings sprouted from her back and then grabbed Tommy and Laura with her hands. She flew out a hole in the roof and dropped them by the car. Tommy grabbed the keys and slammed them in. The car started with a roar. The girl vampire got in the back seat. “Seriously, she’s coming with us?” asked Tommy. “Well, she doesn’t really have much else to go considering everything. She just let two people who weren’t supposed to get out… get out. Now drive.” said Laura, adding an extra fierceness to the end of her sentence. The wheels rolled and skidded out, Tommy noticing a pack of vampires chasing them through the rear-view mirror. He stepped on the gas and took off at a speed even vampires couldn’t match. ---- After all that was said and done, Tommy just fessed up to it. Yeah, Mom and Dad were mad but they were more relieved that he wasn’t hurt. He was forbidden to go anywhere without their permission now but it was basically a slap on the wrist considering what he thought might happen. He sat down at the lunch table with Laura, not noticing her new vampire girlfriend until he had already sat down. “Wait, she goes to the school now?” asked Tommy. Laura shrugged as she opened her lunch bag. “So yeah… I can’t see you anymore.” said Laura. "Oh..." said Tommy. "Wait, really?" "Nah, I'm totally joking with you. I slipped into the bedroom window late last night and Andrée just slept as a bat in the closet." said Laura. "They didn't even know you left?" asked Tommy. "Nah." said Laura. "Man... " said Tommy disappointingly. "So yeah. Jess is back already too. It's like nothing happened." said Laura. "Wait, what if Jess turned into a vampire? She did get bit..." Tommy said. "You idiot, that's zombies." Andrée said. "Oh," said Tommy. "Say, we never did take care of Coach Feratu did we?" "He's still in the trunk of your car?" asked Laura. "No, he wasn't there when I came to check. I don't know where he is." said Tommy. "Ah, we'll worry about it later." said Laura. "Wait, Andrée, how does one turn into a vampire?" asked Tommy. "I mean, if Jess didn't turn into one, how did you...?" "Well, you either gotta be born a vampire or the vampire inserts their own blood during the bite. It's pretty rare." said Andrée. "Ah," said Tommy. "Honestly, I have a lot of questions going forward, but I guess the most important one is... what do we do now?" THE END ---- "I see that you've come crawling back to me, Michael." said a deep voice. The room was dark and lit only by a single torch and computer screen. The janitor was on his knees. "I've found the next batch of monster hunters. Their names are Tommy and Laura." said Michael. "I suppose it's better than putting the project on a man out of his league, right?" cackled the voice. A pair of hooves stepped out from the shadows. "Only a couple more souls to finish what you and her started." Category:Short Stories Category:Tommy and Laura Category:Writings Category:Stories